


Blessed Hands - The Other Chapter Ten

by ArvenaPeredhel



Series: Blessed Hands Will Break Me: The Appendices [2]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M, Mutual Masturbation, and everything in this fragment is consensual, but not between these characters, there are MENTIONS of past rape and assault here, wow this is happier than the 'canon' version
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:35:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22378060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArvenaPeredhel/pseuds/ArvenaPeredhel
Summary: This is a now-discarded draft that's existed for some time for Blessed Hands Will Break Me's chapter 10. I wanted to share it because I'm proud of the writing, even though it's not where the story is going now. Featuring Maedhros, Fingon, and reunion at last.
Relationships: Fingon | Findekáno/Maedhros | Maitimo
Series: Blessed Hands Will Break Me: The Appendices [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1658740
Comments: 13
Kudos: 65





	Blessed Hands - The Other Chapter Ten

**Author's Note:**

> This is an incomplete draft of chapter ten; there will be some overlap between the "canonical" version and this one as I'm preserving part of the intro.

Maitimo opened his eyes. He was lying on his side, in the bed once more, and Findekáno was beside him, staring into his face. The sheet and blanket were drawn up over both of them. He realized suddenly that both his husband and his uncle were clothed, while he wore only bandages; he thought that he ought to be ashamed of this but found he did not have the energy. 

“You fell asleep,  _ enda-nînya, _ ” Findekáno said gently, and he reached out with one hand and brushed a strand of hair from Maitimo’s face.

“And you were watching me?” he asked weakly, trying to smile but finding he could not force his lips to curve upward. 

“I was, once my father left us alone,” Findekáno said, and his eyes were soft and warm. “Is that so wrong?”

“Nolofinwë is gone?” Maitimo asked, and pushed himself up on his elbow. The room was empty save for the two of them, and the door was shut.

“He helped me get you into bed again, and ordered me to sleep myself, and went back to his duties. But I am not tired, and so, I watched you.”

_ Oh, _ Maitimo thought, and his stomach twisted on itself, and he fought to keep from retching from the realization.  _ Oh, it is a dream. _ His eyes filled with tears again, and his rage at being deceived once more was mingling with sick fear at what he knew was coming next.

“Russandol?” Findekáno asked, and his resolve broke and he was sobbing again, trembling so violently that he could feel himself shaking against the mattress.  _ I do not want this, _ he thought, and it was plaintive, and it was desperate, and Þauron would use that against him, and he did not care.

“Russo,” the thing in Findekáno’s shape said, and it sounded so very like him, and Maitimo was choking on his own nausea.  _ Just do it, _ he thought bitterly.  _ The faster you act the faster it will be over. _

The false Findekáno moved closer to him, wrapping arms about him, cradling him against a hollow chest that only served as a mask.

“You are safe,” it said, and he shook his head. It was not worth pretending he was fooled anymore. He could feel the shape moving, curling around him, holding him close, kissing him,  _ kissing him -  _

\-  _ mana ëa ta? Þauron eryavë míqualyën ve insë... _

“What?” Maitimo said again, aloud, and gasped for air, and stared up at Findekáno’s face.

“I said, you are - !”

“I know what you said,” he interrupted, eyes darting over nose and cheekbone and lip and ear and hair. “You - I - this - this is  _ real? _ ”

“Of course this is real,” his husband said, and he could see the confusion evident in every line of Findekáno’s expression. “You are found, and freed, and rescued. Truly.”

Before he could stop it, a faint cry escaped his lips, and the tears that had risen up in anger spilled over in disbelief and astonishment.

“I -” he began, and choked, and swallowed, and tried again, “I thought - you are -”

“I am what?” Findekáno asked. 

“It does not matter,” Maitimo murmured, still scanning his husband’s face and drinking in all he found as though the great lights that hung in the sky had arisen for a second time and revealed yet more beauty. His left hand stole up from its place by his side, rendered bold by shock, and it found its way to Findekáno’s face. The skin beneath his fingers was warm, and broken by thin scratches that had scabbed over. 

“You are  _ real, _ ” he said at last, and pulled his husband close and kissed him back.

“Of course I am real,” Findekáno said, and there were tears in his eyes when Maitimo had to stop to breathe. “Of course I am.”

“You - you found me,” Maitimo said, breathless and shrill. “You found me, you  _ freed  _ me, you - !”

He kissed Findekáno again, drawing the other  _ nér _ closer still, until their arms and legs were intertwined and they were face to face and chest to chest. He could feel the beating of his husband’s heart against his own, and his hand stole up to twine itself in a few dark curls that had escaped their tie.  _ I wonder, _ he thought, borne up on overwhelming joy,  _ are we still bound as we once were? I know it is a risk, but… but if it  _ is _ him, I… I do not want to be alone. _

_ I suppose there is only one way to find out, _ Maitimo decided, and took a deep breath, and in one sharp moment he pierced through the walls of fire that banded his heart and kept all out save himself. Findekáno flinched in his arms, mouth falling open and eyes widening, and then in an instant the gleaming, shining spark that  _ was _ his husband had poured itself into a gaping wound in his mind. He had not even realized he was empty before, but now,  _ now -  _

\- they kissed again, and again, fierce and desperate and starving for one another. 

_ I missed you, _ Findekáno said, and he realized with a start that it had been silent. He had never bothered with  _ ósanwe-kenta _ before, but in this moment, he wondered if he would ever speak aloud again.

_ And I missed you, _ he replied, and when his husband laughed he felt it in his own throat. 

_ Kiss me again? _ Findekáno asked him.  _ I want to try something. _

“You never have to ask me to do that,” Maitimo replied aloud, a rumble of almost-laughter in the words, and when their lips met once more, Findekáno’s hand cupped his face.

_ Let me in, _ his husband thought, and when Maitimo frowned and began to murmur a low “what?” Findekáno’s tongue pushed past his teeth and into his mouth. He moaned, and before he realized it he had rolled onto his back with the other  _ nér _ on top of him. His hand was still wound in dark hair, and as they moved the leather thong that held it back came undone and loose curls fell over the both of them. 

“You are going to be awful for my hair care regimen,” Findekáno chuckled. “I suppose it is well for you that I am not particularly vain.”

“Shut up,” Maitimo said, and kissed him once more. 

They were entangled in one another, shoulders and thighs and hips pressed together somehow despite how much taller he was than Findekáno, and despite his weakness he found he could easily keep pace with his husband’s desperate need for him, drawing on the coppergold and silverblue that bound them together and letting their mingling fires sustain him.

And then he shuddered, and moaned into yet another kiss, and suddenly there was a fierce hot pressure at his hips, pushing upward into the blankets. His husband frowned, and broke off from him, and pushed himself up onto his hands. Maitimo raised an eyebrow as Findekáno glanced down between them, and then with a jolt of fierce embarrassment he realized that somehow, despite all odds and all tortures, his cock still seemed to function. 

Maitimo blushed. Findekáno looked down at his hips once more, and then back up at his husband.

“You almost died of blood loss,” he said, and he was trying not to laugh. “How do you have enough for - for  _ that? _ ”

“I am rather light-headed,” Maitimo admitted, shoulders trembling with a near-chuckle.

“Do you want to stop?” Findekáno asked.

“ _ Ercamando, _ no!” he said, and the ferocity of his response startled him. “I - I have not…” He shivered again, and swallowed hard, and blinked back yet more cursed tears. “I have not felt so like myself in sixty years,  _ enda-nînya. _ I am exhausted, and my heart is pounding, and if I do not feel your hands on me I think I shall burst from frustration.” He sighed, and shook his head. “And I have enough nightmares of the two of us tangled up together, of Þauron wearing your face, of his lips and teeth and tongue - !” He stopped when he saw the horrified look on Findekáno’s face, and blushed even more deeply. 

“I… I wish to think of  _ you, melindo, _ ” he said at last. “You. Not… not the darkness and the pain, not - !”

Findekáno kissed him yet again, and one hand wrapped around Maitimo’s shoulders while the other went to his hips. 

“Are you sure, Russandol?” he asked softly, and his eyes were warm and gentle. “Truly?”

Maitimo nodded, and swallowed hard. “Truly,” he said. “I… I want this.” 

Findekáno smiled. “Good,” he said, and pulled him close against his chest and kissed his neck. The hand that had been at his hips slid inward, and Maitimo whimpered at the touch of skin on skin.

“Are you all right?” his husband asked, and he nodded against Findekáno’s shoulder. 

_ Yes, _ he thought.  _ You will know if I am not. _

_ All right, _ Findekáno answered, and slowly wrapped his fingers around Maitimo’s cock.

The other  _ nér _ whimpered, his left hand shifting and sliding down to grasp at his husband’s shoulder, and his head slammed back against the pillows as his back arched up.  _ Ai, muk, _ he thought, and it was only when Findekáno responded by pressing kiss after kiss to the hollow of his collarbone that he realized his mind was still open. He moaned, and turned his head to bare his neck, and let himself come undone in the midst of kisses and caresses. The hand on his shaft shifted, fingertips sliding over skin, caressing and ghosting over him, tweaking gently at the head of his cock.

“ _ Ercalyën _ ,” he murmured, breathless and needy, and Findekáno kissed him at the edge of his mouth and caught his lip in white teeth. They twined together, blue and silver and copper and gold in the darkness of his thoughts, and Maitimo would have drifted off into dim dream if not for the suddenly steady  _ up and down, up and down _ of his husband’s hand on him. 

“You’re weeping  _ nómilt _ for me,  _ vanimelda, _ ” Findekáno breathed in his ear, and he gasped and moaned and whimpered into another kiss, and his tongue slid into the hungry mouth that met his own, and he was not quite sure where he ended and his husband began. He could feel himself being touched with a right hand that was not there, he could feel his left hand digging into his own shoulder, he could feel, he could  _ feel _ \- 

“Grinding Ice,” Findekáno swore, and began to stroke him in earnest. “I am hard enough to cut glass.”

Maitimo could feel that too, both against his thigh and in his own groin. His husband’s desire had been dormant, but now that it was sparked... 

“Lay me down on the bed,” he rasped. “Stop trying to hold me up.”

“What?” Findekáno asked, drawn up out of the knot of shared sensation by the question. Maitimo inclined his head, indicating the mattress again. “Oh,” he said, a little sheepish, and obeyed the request.

“Come closer,” Maitimo said aloud once he was flat on his back. The other  _ nér _ bent over him, palming his cock; he let go of the shoulder he had been clinging to and his hand slid into Findekáno’s breeches.

“Ai, Vána’s tits - !” his husband swore, and stifled a cry by burying his face in Maitimo’s shoulder. Something bright and fierce and  _ joyful _ surged between them, and then,  _ then  _ -

\- they were shuddering and shivering against one another, draining back into themselves, and they were kissing, and they were kissing, and laughter rose up in Findekáno’s throat, egged on by the sudden pooling heat at both their hips. Whatever strength had been binding them both together was gone, faded into memory and leaving them curled up on the bed in a tangle of limbs and bright eyes.

“I…” Maitimo began, still more than a little breathless, “I can safely say that I do not remember our first time as being quite so…”

“I know,” Findekáno replied. “I think I like this, though.” He looked down at his hand, still holding his husband’s cock, and made a face. “Unfortunately, it seems we’ve made quite the mess.”

Maitimo laughed softly. “I ruined your breeches,” he said. “And I cannot give you any surefire remedy.”

“You ruined your own breeches,” Findekáno answered, and kissed him again. “Remember? I was left with yours to cross the Ice with.”

“Those are mine?” Maitimo asked. “You great ass.”

“The problem remains,” Findekáno said.

“That problem being?”

“What are we going to do about the bedsheets? I can simply burn these - we have spare clothing now, all of us - but the sheets are another matter.”

“Surely the launderers have some method of getting  _ milt _ out of linen?” Maitimo asked.

“I would assume so,” Findekáno answered, “but the trouble is that these are  _ your sheets, _ and you are - well, you are supposed to be injured and recovering - !”

“I  _ am _ injured and recovering.”

“But - you know what I mean! You are not… well…”

“Not meant to be making love to my husband?” 

“Exactly,” Findekáno said with a low chuckle, and sat up. He lifted the sheet and blanket and glanced down at Maitimo’s hips, and raised an eyebrow. “Well. You did not spill too much? It is mostly on my hand. We may survive without a clandestine trip to the laundry.”

Maitimo made a face. “I am sorry,” he said as Findekáno lifted his hand free of the bedclothes.

“No, think nothing of it,” his husband said. “It is easy enough to wash myself.”

“Still. You would think it would be slightly less…  _ that _ … when you are like us and totally uninterested in having children.”

“Are you complaining about your own release?” Findekáno asked, sitting up and making his way unsteadily around the bed.

“No!” Maitimo said, and the forceful denial bled out through their bond and made both of them laugh. “I am only -  _ what _ are you doing?”

“I need something with which to rinse my hand,” Findekáno said, limping over to the window on Maitimo’s right, “and I am not risking leaving the room with  _ that _ plainly visible, and the only water is here.” He reached the window, took the autumn leaves from their vase, and then took the vase and emptied it over his hand. Satisfied, he wiped his hand on his tunic and carefully hobbled back to his side of the bed. Maitimo watched him, growing quiet and solemn, their sudden burst of shared joy fading into memory. When he climbed back into bed, he sighed, and lay back against the mattress, and stretched his left leg out. 

Maitimo sighed and rolled onto his back, heart pounding and very dizzy.

“That was too much for you, I think,” Findekáno said. 

He frowned, and thought to protest, but the trembling in his arms and legs and shoulders and the distant hints of a headache made him reconsider. Instead, he turned his head to look at his husband, and his silver eyes were keen and grim.

“You are wounded,  _ melindo, _ ” he said. “How?”

“How?” Findekáno asked, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“I mean what I said.” 

“I know, Russo, but - but I was injured when I freed you.” He, too, turned his head, and his face was tight with concern. “When I found you, on the cliff-face. Do you not remember?”

“No,” Maitimo replied softly. “The last thing I remember before waking in this room was weeping miserably, because the host of soldiers I called out to did not heed me.”

“Soldiers?”

“Your father’s host, I am told.”

“I - wait, you were on the walls even then?”

“I was.”

Findekáno paled, and took Maitimo’s hand in both of his and held it to his chest. “I am sorry,” he said. “If I had seen you, if I had known, then - !”

“No,” Maitimo said, shaking his head. “No, for Moringoþo’s eyes were on you that day, and you would not have succeeded in your efforts, and then we would have both been in thrall to him.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I simply am. Now. How were you wounded?”

Findekáno sighed, his face falling. “When I found you, I tried and failed to climb the mountain -”

“That was foolish.”

“Will you let me finish?”

“Fine, I am sorry, go on.”

Findekáno shook his head. “To hear you talk, you would think you did not  _ wish _ to be freed!”

“We are talking about how you were injured, not my feelings on liberty.”

“I sought to climb to you, but I could not, for it was too high and there was nothing to grip,” Findekáno continued, glancing sharply at Maitimo but ignoring the obvious invitation for a fight. “My hands were ripped to shreds on the rocks, and it was slick and cold. You called out to me - you begged me to slay you - and I bent my bow and nocked an arrow and would have obeyed. But I could not - the shot went wild, for the great Eagle called Sorontar - !”

“Þorontar.”

“Sorontar flew down to me, and  _ spoke _ to me, and said he would bear me up to you.”

“What, so you quite literally flew to my side?”

“Yes.”

Maitimo’s eyes grew wide, and he shifted position and went limp against the mattress.

“You… you are not jesting, not exaggerating,” he said softly.

“No,” Findekáno told him, “I am not.”

“What… how? I am - we are - the Valar doomed us,  _ damned _ us!”

“And yet it was by their grace that you were saved, for when Sorontar drew near to the mountain I leapt from his back, and I caught hold of the rock and I was able to reach you.” He smiled faintly, still holding Maitimo’s hand. “Unfortunately, there is no elegant way to fling yourself onto a mountain-peak. I was above you, when I caught myself, and I struck my head and slammed my face into the rock. I broke my wrist and my ankle both, for they took my weight and held me, and I lost my grip and slid down the cliff. Only catching hold of your shackle kept me from falling to my death.”

Maitimo winced, shuddering. “My own bones have been broken enough that I can safely say I pity you.”

“Oh, Russo - !”

“I do not wish to speak of my own torment,  _ melindo.  _ I am only glad you are safe and sound.”

“Yes,” Findekáno said, and turned to curl up beside him. “For once, things seem to be going our way.”


End file.
